When Anthony Gentry showed up for a job interview a few months ago, he could sense the cards were stacked against him.

Most of the faces in the Fontana factory were brown. The only black person he saw shook his head.

“He looked at me like, `They’re not going to call you again,”‘ said the 40-year-old Hesperia resident.

As the country struggles to climb out of the recession, Gentry believes Latino immigrant workers are winning the battle for low-wage jobs formerly held by blacks.

“They are taking a lot of jobs,” said Gentry, who was at the San Bernardino Employment and Training Agency on Friday morning looking for a job. “I’m not against them coming to the United States, but it’s harder to compete against them because they get paid less money.”

A new study by Louisiana State University researchers backs up Gentry’s belief.

Latino immigration caused black workers to be uprooted from low-skill labor markets, which in turn increased crime in urban areas across the country, according to the study.

The problem can be traced to the failure of U.S. immigration policies, said LSU sociology professor Edward Shihadeh, lead author of the study.

Latino immigration used to be a two-way trip; immigrants moved back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border as economic needs dictated, he said.

But when border security was intensified over the past two decades, it became too risky for many illegal immigrants in the United States to go home for fear they would not be able to return, Shihadeh said.

The large number of Latino workers who remained in the country flooded low-skill industries, displacing blacks from jobs in agriculture, manufacturing and construction, he said.

“This is really a story of unintended consequences,” said Shihadeh, whose study appeared in the March issue of Social Forces, a sociology journal. “The wall and all these border restrictions that have been put up were intended to control immigration and keep Latinos out. What happened was it really trapped them in the country.”

The story resonates with black leaders in San Bernardino County.

James Tate, a local Republican activist, runs a San Bernardino business that trains nursing assistants and home health aides.

He says many of his medical assistants can’t get jobs because they are black.

“We have clients that have told us, `We don’t want a black. Anybody but a black,” Tate said.

Tate said he has talked to many blacks who tried to get manufacturing and service jobs.

“A lot of blacks aren’t at construction sites because of illegal immigrants,” he said. “The story I hear is that from the get-go they’re up against it mainly because they’re outnumbered.”

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, Fontana Councilwoman Acquanetta Warren said she remembers when young blacks needed only a high school diploma to find industrial jobs that paid good wages.

The jobs dried up with the influx of illegal immigrants in the 1980s. Blacks who didn’t speak Spanish lost out, she said.

“We don’t have a level playing field anymore because we’ve allowed illegal immigration to take us over,” said Warren, who is running for an Assembly seat in the June 8 Republican primary. “It’s out of control and needs to be stopped. What part of illegal don’t people understand?”

Cecilia Conrad, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Pomona College in Claremont, said there is persuasive evidence that immigrants displace native-born workers in low-skill and entry-level jobs.

“This results from a combination of factors: employer preferences and reliance on informal recruitment networks such as asking current workers to refer friends and family,” Conrad said. “In addition, once a workplace is dominated by immigrants, language becomes a barrier for black workers who are not bilingual.”

Latino activists dispute the argument that immigrants have had an adverse impact on black employment.

Elsa Valdez, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino, said it’s “absolutely ridiculous” to accuse immigrants of taking jobs and causing the economy to fail.

“People place blame on the immigrants for all the social ills of society,” Valdez said. “They have no power. They don’t control the financial markets. They don’t control the banks. They don’t control the manufacturing industries that have located overseas because they can hire cheap labor.”

Jose Zapata Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, said that both Latino immigrants and blacks would benefit from comprehensive immigration reform.

“National policy should recognize that when legalization is allowed and the undocumented status is removed, wages and productivity increase for all workers, not just immigrants,” Calderon said.

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